


it's too late (i'm absolutely smitten)

by itbelynx



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Coat Stealing, Dead Character Mention, F/M, Heartache, Mutual Pining, Pirate Arc (Critical Role), Playing with a cat as a coping mechanism, caleb hates himself but he loves jester, its a fun dynamic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21870574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itbelynx/pseuds/itbelynx
Summary: Two sides of a conversation while sitting on the deck of the Squalleater.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 3
Kudos: 71





	it's too late (i'm absolutely smitten)

**Author's Note:**

> happy holidays !! this was my secret santa gift for the widojest server for acie !!! i hope you enjoy this !!

Ever since the day she had called him stinky, Jester had regretted it. Caleb didn’t stink that bad, not anymore than any other patrons in the tavern. And she had noticed the bit of dried blood on his shirt and coat, which meant he had probably gotten into a serious fight the day before. The day he had gone for a bath, she had noticed immediately, and she remembered smiling when she saw his clean face for the first time. Though it didn’t last long as just a few days later in Zedash, she insulted him again, causing him to wipe mud directly onto his face. 

Jester didn’t know. That was something she had come to realize about herself. She knew very little about the world and how people operated. Especially people like Caleb who were so visibly haunted by something that it was hard for them to be interpersonal to begin with. When she got the money from her mother, she understood then what Caleb meant. So, she apologized, and the two continued on with their friendship. 

Flashforward a few months, the two were on the sea, sitting on a ship after having just nearly escaped death. Caleb was silent, and Jester didn’t have much to say either. The sea breeze was just enough to let Caleb’s musk drift over to her. She smiled as she breathed it in. It was so nice to have the scent of a lingering campfire fill her nose. She held herself just a little, as if imagining being back on dry land, rather here out in the stupid ocean while Fjord made horrible decisions to sleep with Captain Avantika. 

“Jester, are you cold?”

She was brought from her thoughts to find Caleb looking over at her with a curious look. She almost said no, that she wasn’t cold. She never got cold. But a thought struck her and she wondered if she could pull it off. 

“A little bit, yeah.”

“Maybe you should head back below decks. I’m sure it’s warmer there.”

Well, that won’t do. “I like sitting up here and watching the water.” She looked out to sea again. “Plus, I like keeping you company. It reminds me of when we were back in Zedash and you would sit and identify all the things we found. And I’d sit by and watch you and wait to see if any of the pretty necklaces or rings could be mine.” 

She looked back to Caleb to see his face turn a shade of red. It was so fun to embarrass him. It had been a while since she had done it though, since before the kidnapping. She shuddered at the thought, which seemed to work in her favor as she watched Caleb strip out of his big brown coat and place it on her shoulders. 

“Thank you, Caleb,” she smiled, wrapping herself in the coat. 

It wasn’t very thick and Jester almost asked him how he stayed warm when it was freezing outside, but was cut off by the smell of Caleb. That campfire smell was much stronger now. She pulled the collar of the jacket up to her nose and took a long whiff, feeling as if she were safe within Caleb’s embrace. 

Her thoughts halted and she felt her mind rewind as she slowly took another sniff. The smell was the same, and she thought about what that means to her. Why did she want Caleb’s jacket? She wasn’t cold. But still, she felt safe and warm within the coat. She looked over to see Caleb back in his spot against the mast of the ship, nose buried deep in his book. She smiled to herself as she looked at him, as if with new eyes. 

She saw the way the sun bounced off the highlights of his hair. She looked at the way the piercing blue hue of his eyes seemed to shine, even as his eyes squinted at the text before him. Jester watched in fascination as Caleb smiled to himself over whatever he was reading and felt her heart flutter, smiling as a reaction. She watched the wind gently toss his hair around until he got annoyed with it and tied it back into a ponytail and Jester almost pouted that she couldn’t be sitting behind him and braiding his hair while he read. The thought reminded her of nights with her Mama, where she would read to her until she fell asleep and the imagery made her smile warmly. 

"What are you smiling about?"

The voice startled her. Jester looked to see Caleb looking at her and it took everything not to run away right then. She hoped that he couldn't see her blush. 

"Oh, nothing. I was just remembering something my Mama and I used to do."

"Ah," he said shortly, looking away from her a moment that made her die a little on the inside. "You miss her, ja?"

"Yeah. We left so quickly after being with her for such a short time. And now..." She looked over to where Fjord and Avantika were at the helm, talking seriously about something. "I know we have to help Fjord, I'm just scared we're never gonna go back home, you know?" 

Caleb didn't answer for a moment. Then, he said, "If it gets bad, we'll steal a row boat and we'll sail to Nicodranes, okay?" 

The way he looked at her made her heart swell in her chest, skipping a few beats as it did so. The determination in his brow, the promise not only on his lips but also in his eyes as they pierced into her own. She opened her mouth to say something but found nothing there. Instead, she nodded, mirroring his determination. 

"I don't know how far we'll make it on a row boat. but if we get close enough then at least at one point we can just polymorph twice and that will help us get super far by carrying each other," she suggested. 

"I'd rather not try to sleep in the middle of the ocean."

That thought hadn't occurred to her. "Oh."

"It's okay. I know which way is North, so that will help us figure out that we just gotta head West and we'll get back to the Menagerie Coast."

Jester smiled. "Yeah! And with those special paints you got for me, I can paint us some sails that we can use to help us travel so we don't exert ourselves rowing!" 

"Good thinking. I do think we'll have to take Nott, though. I don't think she's a big fan of this water stuff, plus she's my closest friend and I'd rather not lose her."

"Oh, yeah, for sure! We're the best detective duo. I can't leave my partner behind. Come on, Caleb, I thought you were the smart one here," she teased. 

Caleb smiled and chuckled softly, the sound making Jester's heart explode. She leaned a little closer to him. She watched him look away from her, and back to his book. Jester wrapped herself up in his coat some more, looking away herself, eyes trained on the horizon. 

They sat there together in silence, letting the gentle rocking of the ship on the ocean and the roar of the waves below them fill the space for a bit. 

After a while, Jester stood up and placed Caleb's coat back on his shoulders. She leaned down and kissed Caleb's cheek, remembering the last time she did this was in Hupperdook. 

"Thank you, Caleb."

\----

The staring had not escaped Caleb’s notice. It just freaked him out a little bit. He didn’t know why Jester was staring at him so much and while he wanted to ask, he was terrified to know the answer. At one point he saw her pull out her sketchbook in his peripheral. He boiled it down to her drawing a funny picture of him to escape her boredom, so he went back to his reading. 

“Caleb, do you think Molly would have liked the ocean?” Jester said after a while. 

He looked up to see a sad look in her eye. He regretted Molly’s death greatly. But he was, somewhat selfishly, a bit grateful for it because it allowed him to assess their little group a bit, and become closer with Beau who he now considers like a sister to him. Plus, he had come to care a great deal for Jester from being so protective of her that now his heart fluttered whenever she would give him a lingering glance or the smallest of affectionate touches. 

“I think he would. He was always a free spirit and would have found the ocean very much like himself, I think. He would have loved the idea of being out here just fucking around with a bunch of pirates.”

Jester smiled. “Yeah, I think so, too. I wonder what he would have called himself, you know? Like what would have been his pirate name?”

“I don’t think he would have chosen a pirate name, you know? He chose the name Mollymauk and I think that suited him. I don’t think he would have liked any other name.”

Jester seemed to contemplate that a moment, as did Caleb. He also wore two names, though speaking one in public places would have him killed on the spot. So, he kept it to himself. Another reminder of the terrible deeds he had done. To everyone else, he was just Caleb, and that suited him just fine, especially if it kept them all safe. 

“That makes sense. Mollymauk suited him. I don’t think he could have come up with a better one, you know?”

“I think you’re right on that.”

He saw Jester smile in almost a sad way before turning her eyes back to her drawing and continuing what she was doing. Caleb waited a couple minutes before summoning Frumpkin and having him stroll over to her and rub against her affectionately. 

“Hi, Frumpkin!” She said excitedly, picking him up. She kissed his nose and held her in front of him. “You’re just the cutest, you know that? Except for Sprinkle, he’s just a little cuter than you are.” She pulled the cat into her lap and gently pet him as he curled up into a ball. 

Caleb watched with great affection. His heart yearned for Jester, desperately wishing it was he who was laying in Jester’s lap and having her fingers comb through his hair. He turned his attention back to his book, bringing it up in an attempt to cover his blushing cheeks, finding it completely unfair how both his cat and the blue tiefling before him were so incredibly endearing and adorable. It felt like a direct attack on his heart. How was a man supposed to cope with this? He supposed he would have to. He could never give Jester the love she deserved when he hated himself as much as he did. She didn’t deserve that, and as long as he could hold it off he would never tell her the atrocities he had committed. Not with her having a very lovely and caring mother back home. He could never have enough courage to tell her that he had killed his own loving parents in his family home when he was seventeen solely because he wanted to graduate and become the best student to ever attend the Cerberus Assembly. But, he ended up breaking. And now he was an orphan with nothing to show for it other than the red in his ledger. 

“Caleb, do you think Frumpkin likes pocket bacon?”

He looked up to find Jester with a handful of bacon inches from his cat’s face, who looked incredibly displeased by the predicament he was in. 

_ I’m sorry, mein freund. _

“Yeah, you can feed him some pocket bacon.”

He couldn’t say no to Jester, as much as he wished he could. But she had him wrapped around her little finger and there was nothing he could do to unravel himself. He was hooked, and while he knew nothing would come of it, it was nice to care about someone like this again and to have them close enough for him to protect. It was worth the heartache he suffered internally. 


End file.
